International Conference on Renewable Energy

The Second International Conference on Renewable Energy: Resources, Challenges & Opportunities was organized during March 9-10, 2012 by the Amrita School of Engineering in Coimbatore. The conference aimed to bring together leaders in the fields of technology, policy, industry and finance to develop solutions for the tremendous challenges faced by today’s energy market.

Organized in collaboration with EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland), EMPA (Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research) and Colorado State University, USA, the conference was co-sponsored by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Ministry of Science and Technology, CSIR, BRNS, ISRO, DRDO, AICTE and Suzlon. During his benedictory address, Swami Ramakrishnananda Puri pointed out that today man is exploiting nature in order to make money at any cost. Dr. Farooq Abdullah, Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy was joined by Dr. R.K. Pachauri, Chancellor of TERI University at the inaugural ceremony of the conference.

A pre-conference workshop provided an overview of various renewable and sustainable energy technologies to delegates. Dr. K. Kalyana Sundaram, Senior Scientist at the Lab for Photonics and Interfaces at EPFL, Dr. S. Gomathinayagam, Executive Director of Centre for Wind Energy Technologies (C-WET) and Sri D.V. Giri, Chairman of Indian Wind Turbine Manufacturers Association, highlighted the role of wind power for India’s energy security, K. Subramanya, CEO, Tata BP Solar, Prof. Juzer Vasi from IIT Bombay, Dr. W. S. Sampath ,Department of Mechanical Engineering, Colorado State University, Fort Collins were the other experts on the conference. A hundred of participants from academia, industry and research attended the two day conference

Dr. Farooq Abdullah, Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy was joined by Dr. R. K. Pachauri, Chancellor of TERI University at the inaugural ceremony of the conference.
“The world is paying the price of the damage we have done to the environment. The tsunamis, cyclones that are happening and thousands of people dying are all because we have played so long with nature,” reminded the Union Minister, Dr. Farooq Abdullah, in his inaugural address.
There are enormous benefits from use of renewable energy. We make progress towards energy security, there are health benefits as there...

Dr. Nitant was an invited speaker, highlighting the renewable energy roadmap for India.
Ms. Arpita Bisht, Research Scholar at TERI, who spoke about biofuels.
Ms. Bisht outlined the different types of biofuels. Primary biofuels were those that were produced from food based resources, such as corn, soya bean and sugarcane and secondary biofuels, which were accorded more importance in recent times, were those that used stems, husks, leaves, grass or organic industry waste.
Mr. P. Sekhar, Director of a Renewable Energy company, who spoke on the topic, Biowaste to Bioenergy and Organic...